Lantern Slides
by KilroyWasHere
Summary: A series of one-shots that offer glimpses into the lives of Attolia, Sounis, and Eddis's young rulers. Spoilers through Conspiracy of Kings. Gen/Irene and Sophos/Helen.
1. Who We Truly Are

"**It is our choices that show who we truly are, far more than our abilities."**

**~J.K. Rowling **

They settled on the bed and let out mutual groans of exhaustion. Today had been unusually hard. The queen had to meet with all of her barons and assure them that the Crown had a plan for dealing with the resent storms that had wrecked many peoples' crops, and then had to deal with the glares and subtly worded complaints of those barons whose land bordered the seas because she was cutting money from their treasuries. After a late lunch, she'd been forced to break up a fight between two of her attendants—foolish girls who would have found themselves sent back to their families in disgrace if it wasn't for Phresine's timely comment—and then meet with her Minister of Ceremony about the planning of an upcoming festival. Her protests that it was the king, not she, who preferred arranging fancy displays and succulent meals had fallen on deaf ears.

The king, meanwhile, had woken even earlier than she to train with the guards, many of whom still quietly resented him, and then spent the next seven hours in the unbearable company of the Medean ambassador, who spoke in flowery phrases, making suggestions and insults disguised as compliments as the king's wrist ached more and more, until he could barely resist the temptation to dump the ambassador out a convenient window. He'd spent the rest of his day being dragged back and forth by Ornon, attempting to settle a dispute between the Eddisian garrison and the Attolian soldiers, which he remarked icily that Ornon could have handled perfectly well himself, with the assistance of a few sharp words from Teleus.

They'd managed to bow out of that evening's feast after three hours of dining and dancing instead of the usual five, and Eugenides had only bothered to wait for the door to close on his attendants before climbing through the passage to his wife's room, stumbling with tiredness as he dropped through the ceiling. The queen had half-heartedly pulled out the pins and ribbons holding her hair in place before the two of them collapsed on her bed with a distinct lack of dignity or grace.

Looking at her husband now, Irene remembered Relius's comment that he'd only become king to marry her, not the other way around. She resisted the urge to ask if he was unhappy. If he was he'd be sure to tell her himself. Sure enough, they'd only been resting for five minutes when he opened his mouth. When he spoke, however, it was not what she was expecting.

"We should own goats."

"Goats, my lord?" she asked. She would have smiled in amusement if she wasn't so tired.

"Well, they're a better choice than cattle, I believe, and we're certainly not going to raise horses."

Irene sat up a little, wondering if the Medean ambassador had slipped something in his drink. "And what, my lord, has prompted this discussion about the merits of livestock?"

Eugenides smiled at her, waving his hand carelessly through the air. "For our farm, of course."

"Of course."

"I figure we need some way to support ourselves after we run away, and I think owning a farm could be quite pleasant. It's isolated, certainly, and while goats may whine and complain if you don't feed them in time, they won't attempt to assassinate you or steal from your treasury or spy on you or put sand in your food."

"Sand in your food?" Irene asked, her tone sharp.

"For example." Eugenides said, carefully not meeting her gaze.

"So we're planning on running away, stealing a farm, and living out the rest of our lives raising goats?" she asked dryly, running a hand through his tangled hair. She knew he had a habit of running his hand through it when he was agitated, and judging by its state of disarray, today had been as trying for him as it had been for her.

He turned, propping himself up on his fake hand and dislodging her fingers from his hair. "Don't you ever wish we could get away?" he asked, tone serious—or as serious as he ever got. "I wouldn't have to smile and be polite to the man who's attempting to steal my kingdom and enslave my people, and you wouldn't have to bend in half just to make your greedy barons happy. We could just be away from it all, and be alone—really alone—together, and I could spend my time whining about my hand while you made sarcastic comments and told me to get over it." He paused and glanced down, blushing a little. "It's just a thought."

For several seconds she said nothing, watching him closely as she considered her answer. "I think," she said finally, "that goats eat everything they can get their mouths on and then leave nasty messes all over the place. I think that I would make a terrible housewife, and you an even worse herdsman. I think that neither of us can cook to save our lives, and you could not ride a horse even before you lost your hand." She reached out and ran her fingers over the stump, caressing the blisters that had resulted from him twisting his arms to hide his agitation with the ambassador. "I also think that I would love nothing more than to spend hours with you, just you, saying whatever we wanted and doing whatever we pleased."

He glanced up and met her eyes, and both of them smiled.

"But?" he said.

"We would be bored." Irene replied. "Horribly, terribly bored after the first day. Not with each other, but with the monotony. Neither of us has the ability to sit still and do nothing, especially when people we love are in danger. It's why I murdered my first husband instead of letting him take the throne, and it's why you willingly spent a year in Sounis's lower city and prison."

"So that's why we keep doing what we do?" Eugenides asked. "To stave off the boredom?" He wrinkled his nose. "Surely there must be a better way to do so than running a kingdom of thieves and murderers."

Irene raised an eyebrow. "May I remind you, my lord, that you kidnapped me. I was born to this. No one asked you to but in."

Eugenides grinned. "I was bored."

"So we forgo the goat farm, then." Irene said.

"Yes. We trade the monotony of raising farm animals for the monotony of raising farm animals in fancier clothing." Eugenides said, plucking at his sleeve and pouting.

"It doesn't have to be monotonous." Irene said. She reached out her hand and tugged on his hair, pulling him closer.

"No?" he asked, eyes sparkling.

"Definitely not." She assured him, leaning close and planting a soft kiss on the corner of his mouth.


	2. I've Heard It's Possible

Set during _Conspiracy of Kings_.

"**I've heard it's possible to grow up—I've just never met anyone who's actually done it. Without parents to defy, we break the rules we make for ourselves. We throw tantrums when things don't go our way, we whisper secrets with our best friends in the dark, we look for comfort where we can find it." **

**-Meredith Grey, **_**Grey's Anatomy**_

"You're always watching."

The Captain of the Queen's Guard turned to look at Sounis's Magus and inclined his head a fraction of an inch. "It's my duty."

The Magus nodded, stepping closer to Teleus and leaning on the wall so he too could watch the four monarchs sitting around a stone table in the inner garden. "It's more than that, though," he said, after a few minutes of watching Sophos chew his lip, realize what he was doing, stop, and then start again a few seconds later.

Teleus stiffened and his mouth thinned. It was true his queen was a beautiful woman—he wasn't blind—but he never allowed even the slightest hint of impropriety to enter his conduct. The Magus's comment was as ridiculous as it was insulting.

The Magus either didn't realize or chose to ignore Teleus's obvious discomfort, and smoothed the sleeve of his robe as he continued mildly, "One always needs to keep a close watch over children."

There was a clink of mail as Teleus spun to look at the Magus, but he quickly returned to his forward-facing position when he realized the Magus was watching the monarchs, apparently unaware of the inflammatory nature of his comment.

"Young though they might be, the rulers of Attolia, Eddis, and Sounis are hardly children." Teleus said, forcing his tone to remain dry. "I think my Queen's barons would object rather strongly if they were."

The Magus coughed, and Teleus turned in time to see the corners of his eyes crinkled with amusement. He raised an eyebrow, and the Magus allowed himself a smile. "Gen was right," he said. "You are a very literal thinker."

Teleus's training prevented him from scowling at the Magus, but it was a near thing.

"No, they're not young enough to be actual children." The Magus said. "Although Gen and Sophos are only a few years out of childhood, and the queens not far behind them. But regardless, they are children, and you know it as well as I do. It's why you still put yourself on the duty roster even though, as the Captain of the Guard, you don't have to. It's why you give the best guards double the pay of the rest of the squad, to ensure their loyalty to you and the queen. It's why you almost caused a mutiny among your men in an attempt to protect a boy you once swore you'd never follow. And it's why," the Magus finished with a sigh, "I have not gotten a good night's sleep since Sophos's father set him on my doorstep four years ago."

This time, Teleus could not stop himself from staring openly, and it was only when the Magus smiled at him and walked away that he snapped out of it and turned his attention firmly back to the garden. He was wrong, Teleus thought. He might know—or think he knew—the two kings and Eddis very well, but he didn't know Attolia. No one in their right mind would call his Queen a child—she hadn't been a child since she was half the age her husband was now, when her father had given her as a gift to his most powerful baron.

Pulling his head out of history, Teleus refocused his eyes on the four monarchs, and let out a quiet sigh on his queen's behalf. Sounis and Eddis had all but abandoned the conversation and instead had their heads bent over some ancient text that Teleus was sure was not meant to be removed from the library. They were trying to read the pages together but they kept bumping heads, and between their blushes and their laughter there was very little reading taking place.

The King of Attolia, meanwhile, was attempting to distract his queen from the paperwork she was reviewing by repeatedly pulling objects from behind her ear—jewelry, flowers, hairpins, and small stones that were added to an ever-increasing pile on the table as the King's attempts grew bolder and bolder. Teleus's lips thinned, and he acknowledged with a frown that the Magus had been three fourths right.

There was a small cry, and Teleus looked up in alarm to see the King laughing as he somehow pulled the feather quill the Queen had been writing with seconds before out from behind her braid. Teleus's eyes narrowed, righteously indignant on his queen's behalf, but then to his shock she too started laughing, and reached out to grab her husband's hand—the real one—twisting his fingers until he released her quill.

Teleus stepped back, eyes widening as he reviewed the Magus's words. Finally he shook his head and smiled ruefully before resuming his post. As the Magus had said, one always needed to keep a close watch over children.


	3. Among the Dark Trees

**No my friend, darkness is not everywhere, for here and there I find faces illuminated from within; paper lanterns among the dark trees.**

**-Carole Borges **

"Why don't you like me?"

The Magus lowered his eyes as she stared at him, waiting for an answer. Even he, who had served the volatile King of Sounis for many years, felt intimated by the piercing gaze of the Queen of Attolia.

"Considering you and your husband are attempting to steal my king's country…"

"No."

"No?"

"No. Even before then, you didn't like me. You're an intelligent man—you know Sounis could not capture, let alone hold, his throne without our help. You might object to some of my demands, but you know I must make them, just as I know you must refuse them. So the question stands: why don't you like me?"

The Magus sighed and gestured to a little-used sitting room off to their left. It occurred to him that this was not his palace, and it was probably rude to tell a queen, even silently, what to do, but she merely waved to her attendants, waiting at the end of the hallway, and followed him into the room, shutting the door with a click.

The Magus waited while she settled herself into a chair, her skirts arranged evenly and her back straight, and he was struck once again by the difference between the Queen of Attolia and the Queen of Eddis. Both powerful, commanding, intelligent women, yet as different as night and day. When she was settled, she looked at him expectantly, one eyebrow raised, and he cautiously sat down across from her.

"I'm sure your husband has told you how my entire family died in the plague that swept through Sounis almost fifty years ago. What I'm sure he didn't tell you, because he did not know, is that Sounis—Sophos's uncle—forbid me from marrying."

Attolia's eyebrow shot up, but she didn't say anything.

"He never did so openly, of course. He never even said the words to me. But as I'm sure you learned from your experience with your Secretary of the Archives, it is a dangerous thing for those who have the trust—or the attention, at least—of monarchs to have significant others in their lives. But…" He shrugged. "I'd resigned myself to the same fate long before I knew the king expected it of me. I was content with my books and my studies—what need did I have for a companion, when nearly everyone I met was less intelligent than I?"

He stood up and began pacing, his feet treading silently on the plush carpet. The queen's eyes did not follow him, but faced straight ahead, and the Magus wasn't sure she was listening. Not that it mattered. Now that he'd started, he couldn't leave the story half way.

"I had friends, of course, but if I'm honest with myself they were colleagues, employees, diplomats. Yet I would have been content if things had stayed that way forever. Until the king asked me to teach his nephew, after so many tutors had tried and failed to instill any sense of discipline or responsibility into him."

The Magus shook his head. "Sophos was…Sophos is…a trial. He's absent-minded, and forgetful, and clumsy, and far too optimistic for his own good, even in the face of everything that's happened to him." He didn't realize he was smiling fondly until he caught himself and stopped. "Yet despite all of that, I began to enjoy his company. He has a thirst for knowledge, a genuine desire to learn anything anyone will teach him, and unlike just about every scholar I have ever known, he isn't vain about his intelligence, and he isn't afraid to look foolish."

The Magus sighed, running his hand over a scar on his hand, a scar he'd received from the sword of guard employed by the queen who sat before him now. "I often said Ambiades—you know who Ambiades—" The queen nodded, and the Magus wasn't surprised. "I often said Ambiades should have been heir to the throne, and Sophos my disciple. I said that not only because it was true, but also because I wished—foolishly, selfishly—that I could keep teaching Sophos, and rid myself of Ambiades.

"While I wasn't paying attention I had become annoyingly fond of Sophos, and I wanted to shield him from all the heartbreak, the uncertainty, the necessary cruelty, that would be inevitable parts of his transformation into Sounis."

He paused, moving to stare out the window at the distant Eddisian mountains, and when he spoke it was so soft the queen almost didn't hear. "I failed. Even before…" he turned back and tapped his lip, and the queen nodded, "I had failed him. His father realized that I enjoyed teaching Sophos, and Sophos enjoyed learning from me, and so he took Sophos away long before Eugenides kidnapped me."

"I fail to see how—"

"I never thought," the Magus continued, aware that he had just interrupted a queen, but entirely unable to stop at this point, "that I could ever feel about another person the way I felt about Sophos. I didn't think that protectiveness, that instinctive need to guide, and heal, and teach, and shield, could possibly be divided and bestowed on another person."

The queen was silent, entirely aware what was coming but willing to let him get there in his own time.

"And then…and then the dawn broke on the third day, and the river rushed in, flooding the valley, and I didn't care that I'd failed my king, that I'd disgraced myself, that I'd potentially destroyed my kingdom. All I cared about was the fact that I'd doomed that boy—that infuriating, aggravating, obnoxious, self-centered, unrefined brat—to death. And when I saw him lying on the ground, when I felt his heart beat…I've never been so relieved in my life."

"You think of them as your sons," the Queen said.

The Magus shook his head. "One doesn't presume to think of kings in such terms. And yet…I can't help worrying about them, and feeling responsible for them, and wanting them to be happy, so…" He shrugged helplessly.

"And how does this lead to your hatred of me?" the Queen asked. She'd already guessed, but she wanted to hear him say it.

The Magus leaned against the windowsill, gathering his thoughts, and when he turned around the queen could see some of the anger back in his eyes. "Gen was innocent before he met you."

The Queen covered a snort with a cough, and she resisted the urge to roll her eyes. "Eugenides has never been innocent, and you know it better than I do."

"When he came to Sounis, he did so because he wanted to protect his cousin, but also because he wanted fame and glory. It was foolish, and naïve, to plant himself in that prison and hope I'd pick him. He saw the whole thing as an adventure, as a chance to prove himself to his family and his queen, and as a challenge, a chance to do what no one had done before: steal Hamiathes's Gift twice.

"I remember every aspect of that trip vividly: how could I not? And I remember how impatient, how easily offended, how impetuous he was. And when we arrived in Eddis, he showed me his books, his room, all the things he'd stolen. He delighted in showing me just how thoroughly he'd fooled me. " He glanced up at the queen. "He was a boy. A boy on the brink of becoming a man, but still a boy."

The queen said nothing as she held his gaze, her eyes fathomless.

"And then…the next time I saw him, that boy was gone. His eyes were hard, he didn't smile, he was cold and cynical. He once staunchly protested against the life of a soldier because it meant killing people, and here he was leading a battalion, burning down a navy."

"And his hand was gone."

"And his hand was gone," the Magus agreed. "I failed Sophos," he continued, turning away from the queen once again. "I let myself become fond of him. I didn't teach him the things I should have: that people are cruel, that greed will motivate men to unbelievable lengths, that ruthlessness is a necessary part of ruling a country, and that an enemy's soldiers will not care how many books you've read when they come to drag you away."

"But I didn't think," he said, turning to face her, eyes snapping, "that it was necessary to teach Gen any of those things. You proved me wrong with a single knife stroke."

"You hate me because you have no other target for your anger," the Queen said after a few minutes of tense silence. "But remember, Magus, that I didn't force my husband into his chosen profession. He walked into danger with his eyes open. If I hadn't cut off his hand, someone else would. Or they'd have killed him. Would you prefer that?"

"Of course not," the Magus said. He smiled sadly at her. "You are mistaken, Your Majesty. I don't hate you. I hate myself for failing him, for failing them both."

"And yet," she said, as she stood and moved towards the door, "you and I are both well aware that the pain that comes with love is better than the apathy that comes with loneliness."

The Magus nodded, opening and holding the door for her. "Would the gods have allowed you to learn that lesson before you cut off his hand," he said, and she didn't flinch.

"I am now certain, Magus, that the gods intended that to be my lesson—and yours."


End file.
